by James R Benn
He slowed as we drove through a gap in the five-foot-high sandbag wall surrounding the field hospital. Rows and rows of tents marked with giant red crosses were set up, the ground between them churned into mud. Engineers were excavating one area, digging in tents so only the canvas roofs were above ground. A field hospital was supposed to be behind the lines, far from enemy fire. This was not a good sign. If the walking wounded started walking away from a field hospital for the relative safety of their foxholes on the front line, something was seriously wrong.
The driver backed up the jeep to an open tent as medical personnel scurried out. Stump was still unconscious, strapped to a litter across the rear of the jeep. By the time the orderlies got Stump off and I had one foot on the ground, the driver had hit twenty, one hand waving good-bye.
“Welcome to Hell’s Half Acre, Lieutenant,” said a nurse clad in fatigues several sizes too large and GI boots caked in mud. “We’ll take good care of your pal, don’t worry.”
“He’s not my pal,” I said, pointing to his wrists, tied tight. “He’s my prisoner.”
“He’s my patient, and the rope comes off. I don’t care what regulations he broke, he gets treated just like everyone else. Now get out of my way.”
“Okay, okay. But I’ll be watching. And give me his clothes, I need to search them.”
“What’d he do, swipe General Lucas’s pipe?”
“He’s murdered at least six people.” Landry, Galante, Cole, Inzerillo, Arnold. Probably Louie Walla from Walla Walla. Cole was by proxy, but he was a victim just the same.
“You mean six on our side? Who’d want to kill his own kind in this hellhole?”
“Good question,” I said. I watched as she checked his eyes and another nurse cut away his clothes, looking for wounds. She called for a doctor as I gathered up Stump’s uniform and sat on a cot to check its contents. Like a lot of GIs, Stump fought out of his pockets, not wanting to carry a pack and risk losing it. The medics had made sure to empty out ammo and grenades, but they didn’t bother with personal effects.
Cigarettes, a lighter, packs of toilet paper. Chewing gum. A letter from his mother, asking if he’d gotten the mittens she’d knitted him, and reminding him to keep clean and change his socks. It sounded like he was at summer camp, not war. He’d started a letter back to her, saying how swell Naples was, and how their barracks were warm and dry. Odd that a six-time murderer would fib to his mother so she wouldn’t worry about him at the front.
Other than a half-eaten Hershey’s bar, that was it. No clues. No deck of cards missing the ten through king of hearts.
All I knew was that I was hungry. I ate the rest of the chocolate, and waited.
“Lieutenant,” a voice said, from somewhere off in the distance. “Lieutenant?”
“Yeah,” I said, waking up with a start. At some point the cot must have reached up and grabbed me, since I was laid out flat.
“The doctor can fill you in now,” the nurse said, pointing to a guy in a white operating gown, removing his cotton mask. But I would have recognized him anyway, with that blond hair.
“Doctor Cassidy, right?”
“Boyle! I guess we were both headed to the same place. Did you find that murderer back in Caserta?”
“I think I found him here. The sergeant you just treated.”
“No kidding? Did you give him that whack on the head? Nearly did him in.”
“No, that was courtesy of a German 88, or at least a piece of a farmhouse that was hit by it.”
“He did have some small bits of shrapnel in his legs, but nothing serious,” Cassidy said, leading me to another tent that served as the post-op ward. “He’s got a pretty severe concussion, but that’s it. Not from shrapnel, most likely flying debris, like you said. His helmet must have absorbed most of the blow, otherwise he’d have been a goner.”
“Can he be moved?”
“No, we need to watch him for a day or so, in case there’s any other damage. We’ll know within twenty-four hours.”
“Is he awake?”
“In and out. He’s got one helluva headache, and is a bit disoriented. Is he really the killer?”
“I found him next to a colonel he was trying to strangle, with this in his hand.” I showed Cassidy the crumpled king of hearts.
“A colonel? So he got his major?”
“Yeah, Major Arnold, just before we pulled out.”
“Arnold, now he was a piece of work.” Cassidy shook his head, his grief at the loss of Arnold easily kept at bay.
“What do you mean by that?” I asked as he opened a canvas flap and we entered a long tent, with wood plank flooring and rows of cots along each side, filled with the wounded, who were bandaged in every possible place.
“Like I told you, he and Schleck didn’t believe in combat fatigue. Or I should say, Arnold believed whatever Schleck told him to. And he was a souvenir hound of the worst kind.”
“Hey, everyone wants a Luger or an SS dagger,” I said, interested in what Cassidy thought the worst kind was.
“Yeah, but with Arnold it was business. He took loot from homes, and collected soldbuchs-you know what they are?”
“Sure. German pay books, with a photo of the soldier.”
“Something macabre about that, don’t you think? Collecting pictures of dead Krauts? And all that other stuff-caps, medals-he didn’t exactly pay top dollar for them. I heard he took them for favors. Not right for an officer. Well, it doesn’t matter now. Here’s Sergeant Stumpf.”
Stump had a thick bandage around his neck, and several on his legs. His eyelids flickered open, then shut. I knelt by his cot.
“Stump, can you hear me?”
“What… happened?” His voice was weak and raspy.
“Remember the Tigers at the farmhouse?”
“Yeah. My squad?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Can you open your eyes?” He did, and I held up the king of hearts. “Tell me about this.”
I watched his eyes blink and his brow furrow, as if he couldn’t understand what I was showing him. Then came the sound of artillery, the metal-on-metal screeching sound like hitting the brakes at high speed with pads worn clean away. Every doctor and nurse in the tent instantly covered the wounded with their bodies, leaning over the bandaged men and cradling heads with their arms. I did the same with Stump, just as the first rounds landed- whump, whump, whump -close enough to shower the canvas tent with debris that sounded like hail. I felt something burning my back and stood up, swatting at myself.
“Shrapnel,” Cassidy said, pulling off my jacket. I noticed small tears in the tent, and one patient dousing his blanket with water. “From that far away, it has lost most of its momentum, but it’s red hot.” He shook the jacket and a sharp, jagged piece of metal fell out. Another round of artillery echoed across the sky, but was a good distance away. No one paid it any mind, except for one GI, both arms swathed in bandages, who rolled out of his cot and began scratching at the floor, trying to dig into it with damaged hands. Two nurses took his arms as Cassidy raced over with a syringe, jabbing the screaming soldier in the thigh. He went limp, moaning as the nurses lifted him back onto his cot.
“Thanks,” Stump said, then pointed to the card I still held. I showed it to him again.
“Some colonel dead?”
“No, no thanks to you. This was in your hands when that German shell knocked you out, as you were strangling Colonel Harding.”
“Who? God, my head hurts.” He tried to raise his head and check out the rest of his body.
“Bad concussion, a bit of shrapnel in the legs. Nothing to worry about,” I said. “It’s over, Stump. We got you dead to rights. Found you next to Harding, with that card in your hand. You were trying to strangle him with his binocular strap. Almost had him, too. Then one of the Tigers blasted the farmhouse, and you got hit on the side of the head.”
“Harding? The colonel who got us out when we were pinned down?”
“The same.”
“Why the hell would I do that? You think I’m Red Heart?” He winced, the effort of speaking painful.
“Why would you have this in your hand?” I held up the king again.
“Dunno. Someone put it there?” His voice was weaker, and his eyes closed.
“That’s what they all say, Stump,” I said, leaning closer. “Tell me the truth. Why did you kill all those people? What did you have against them? What did you have against Louie?”
“Louie? Jesus, he was my pal. What happened?”
“Bullet in the back of the head, close range. You fire your automatic out there?”
“Of course not, we were never close enough to the Krauts for that.”
“It was fired. One round gone. I checked it when I found you.”
“Can’t be. Louie, who’d want to kill Louie?” he said, struggling to keep his eyes open. “Was a major killed? Who?”
“Yeah. Arnold, the day we left Caserta. You know that.”
“No. You mentioned him, said he was alive.”
“I just didn’t say he was dead. How’d you do it, Stump? Get him alone like that?”
“I didn’t,” he said. “Why would I?”
“That’s what I want to know. Why strangle Harding after he saved our bacon? Why any of them?”
“You said Harding was choked by his binocular straps?”
“Yes. Do you remember?”
“And that you found me holding that card?”
“Yes.”
“Lieutenant, my head is scrambled, but even I know you’d need two hands free to strangle a guy. You’d grab and twist those leather straps real tight. Hard to do with a playing card in your hand. That one’s a little worn, but it would be badly crumpled if I’d done that. You’d keep it in your pocket until the deed was done. Now leave me alone.”
Maybe that made sense. Maybe I should have thought of it. But I wasn’t taking any chances. I found an MP and had him cuff Stump to the cot. If he was going anywhere, he’d be dragging an army cot along with him.
I wandered outside, wondering what to do next. I could go back to HQ and see if there was any message from Kaz. I could also check with Kearns about Danny’s transfer and see about getting him out of the platoon. It was a dangerous place, with death dealt from both sides of the table. But first I needed some chow. I spotted Cassidy checking charts and asked him where the mess was. He ditched his bloodstained operating gown and said he was buying.
“It’s not much on taste, but there’s plenty of it,” Cassidy said as we filled our mess tins with corned-beef hash and lima beans. The coffee was hot, and there was even sugar, so I couldn’t complain.
“Do you get many cases like that fellow who tried to dig a hole in the floor?” I asked after I got most of the grub down.
“We’re starting to see them. The artillery bombardment has been getting worse real fast. Most of the wounds we treat are shrapnel. It’s the kind of thing that wears on a man.”
“But the Third Division is a veteran outfit. Shouldn’t it take longer for them to be affected?”
“That’s just it, Billy. The Third has been at the sharp end since North Africa. Then Sicily, then the landing at Salerno, where they took a lot of casualties. After that, the Volturno River, and then Cassino. They only had a few weeks’ rest before this landing, and now we’ve got Germans on the high ground shelling us constantly. The replacements don’t know what to expect, the veterans do, and I can’t tell you which is worse.”
“What do you do for them?”
“The GI you saw will be evacuated as soon as a transport is available. He’s got a million-dollar wound, both arms riddled with shrapnel, so he’s going home. It’s the ones without physical wounds I worry about. A short time in a safe rear area is a big help, but there is no safe haven here. Last I heard, the beachhead was only seven miles wide. The Germans can shell us anywhere they want, day or night.”
“How do you doctors decide which wounds are the milliondollar variety?”
“It’s not an official term, Billy. It’s any wound bad enough to get you sent home but not bad enough to be permanently crippling. That guy had severe muscle damage. No way he could heal up well enough to handle a rifle in combat, but with physical therapy he should be okay. Might take a while, so he fits the bill.”
“What do you think about these murders? Does a killer like that have to be crazy?”
“Crazy isn’t an official term either. Well, to a normal person, yes, someone who commits multiple murders is crazy, since they operate outside the norms of society. But these killings were well thought out, and had a distinctive pattern. The killer eluded capture, until now. These are all signs of intelligent planning. Is that crazy?”
“You sound like a lawyer.”
“Goes to show, there are no easy answers when it comes to crazy.”
“Take a look at this, and tell me if this sounds like a lunatic murderer,” I said, handing Cassidy Stump’s unfinished letter to his mother. Cassidy read the letter, nodding a few times. He handed it back.
“I can’t say he’s not a murderer, based on this. There are many reasons for murder, and plenty of them wouldn’t preclude telling your mother a little white lie. He obviously wants her to think he’s safe behind the lines, in Naples, since the Anzio landing will be in the news.”
“What about the lunatic part?”
“That’s harder, Billy. This letter shows genuine concern for another person. I’m just theorizing now, but cold-blooded murders as you’ve described them demonstrate a total disregard for others. No remorse at all. This letter shows the opposite. He could have not written her, or he could have written her the truth, but instead he took a different tack, making up a story to ease her mind.”
“So Stump is normal?”
“Billy, one of the things you learn on a psychiatric ward is that words like normal and insane are essentially worthless. It’s what I find fascinating about the human mind.”
“That’s swell, Doc, but I need answers and I need them now. I’ve got a lunatic on the loose.”
“Well, ‘lunatic’ is not a precise term, but ‘psychopath’ is. I think that may be what you’re looking for.”
“Like I said, crazy.”
“A psychotic is crazy, in the conventional sense; they’re the ones who hear voices, that sort of thing. But a psychopath is different. You could talk with one and you’d never know it. A true psychopath could write that letter, only if it served a specific purpose and was to his benefit. They’re emotional mimics. They don’t feel real emotion, but they are great observers, and know when to act normal. But a psychopath wouldn’t care about his mother’s feelings. He wouldn’t even understand what that meant.”
“So how can you spot one?”
“It’s easy, once they’re caught. They’re great deniers, sometimes telling such outright lies about their guilt that it’s easy to see through them. They usually have a grandiose sense of their own self-worth and capabilities. But otherwise, they can act just like you and me.”
“Except that it wouldn’t bother them to kill half a dozen people.”
“No, it may even be a source of satisfaction for them. Think about it. No conscience, no empathy or understanding of others. They’re not good at long-term planning, so they find it easy to act on impulse, and they are highly manipulative, so they can often get away with things.”
“But you said this whole thing took planning.”
“Yes, but if we’re dealing with a psychopath, I doubt he planned everything out first. I’d bet it was an impulse that started the ball rolling. Then the grandiose thinking might kick in. In his own world, he might derive pleasure watching those around him react to his escalating crimes. The more he gets away with, the more powerful he feels.”
“It doesn’t sound like he’d be a candidate for combat fatigue.”
“No. He’d have a sense of self-preservation, but he wouldn’t suffer any effects from killing, or seeing his comrades killed. Other than enj
oying the spectacle of it all, maybe. Want some more joe?”
“Yeah, thanks,” I said, and thought about what Cassidy had said while he refilled our cups. Impulse. The sequence of the first two killings always had bothered me. Now I was sure Landry hadn’t been killed first. The playing cards were a trick, a manipulation, to cover up an impulse killing to divert suspicion. Galante had been an immediate threat, and had to be dealt with on the spot. On impulse. I’d bet dollars to doughnuts that Landry knew the killer and Galante were together, so he had to go. Then that grandiose imagination kicks in. Make it look like a guy with a grudge against the chain of command. Get everyone in a tizzy, and watch the fun.
“Would a psychopath enjoy army life?” I asked when Cassidy returned with the coffees.
“Well, you’d have to be crazy to,” he said, grinning at his own joke.
“So what would happen if someone told this nutcase he was going to pull him off the line? Send him to a hospital, cure him?”
“You mean a psychiatric hospital? No way. Our hypothetical guy would kill to stay out of one of those.”
“He’d prefer to stay in combat? Now that’s crazy.”
“I’d say in some ways it could be the perfect environment, since there are clear rules and procedures. He could figure out how to manipulate the system easily. But on the other hand, the peacetime army would be too boring. Psychopaths crave stimulation.”
“Combat is stimulating.”
“Yeah, I see what you mean. I’ve always said that if you keep men in combat long enough, ninety-eight percent will break down from combat fatigue. The other two percent will be psychopaths.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
“We’re short on men, Boyle,” Kearns said. “I’m sorry, but Second Battalion has been pulled back into reserve, and that’ll have to do. No transfers, not for anybody.”
“But sir-”
“Can it, Boyle. If I could I would-we really owe you one. But orders are orders.”
“Okay,” I said, not liking it one bit, and not certain that I was owed a damn thing yet.
